You have to love Big Oil’s chutzpah

Check it out, the Texas oil company Valero has added a staggering $3 million to their Prop 23 contributions, which now total $4,050,000. Despite throwing massive funding at legislation that would repeal California’s clean air laws, Valero claims, “Environmental stewardship is a core value at Valero.” And the oil industry’s hypocrisy is not limited to Valero.

Tesoro Corporation gave $525,000 in support of Prop 23. Their website says, “Social responsibility is an integral part of our business practices &ndash as well as our corporate culture. This is a responsibility, and a promise, we uphold to our employees, shareholders and the communities and environment in which we operate.”

Together these ‘toxic twins’ have 73 violation notices from air quality monitors over the last three years. Check out this great report on their behaviour published earlier this week by Ella Baker Center and Californian Environmental Justice Alliance.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. is the third largest donor to the ‘yes on 23’ campaign. They gave $300,000 to support Prop 23. Their website claims that their “longstanding policy is to seek continuous improvement in resource recovery, conservation, pollution prevention and energy efficiency.”

Every oil company with reported contributions to ‘Yes on 23’ has some sort of stated dedication to a better economy and cleaner environment. Do we believe them? Hell no. On 23.